The knowledge, methods, and procedures of experimental psychology are used as a fundamental basis in Behavior Therapy to expand knowledge about the etiology of behavior, its evaluation, development, and modification. Particular emphasis is placed on using the experimental method to develop explanatory models and intervention procedures.
However, these shared characteristics have allowed different developments depending on the types of “abnormal” behaviors addressed and the intervention techniques or procedures used. Traditionally, attempts have been made to point out orientations or differential lines of action within Behavior Therapy, considering four basic orientations: applied behavior analysis, behavioral mediation orientation, orientation based on social learning, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (Labrador, 1990). It is complicated to distinguish these four orientations, giving a particular confluence of efforts, resources, and procedures in the established problems instead of an excellent dispersion in the procedures as new fields or issues are addressed.
Intervention Techniques In Behavior Therapy
One of the most outstanding and noteworthy aspects of Behavior Therapy has been the development of systematized and brief intervention procedures (at least in comparison with those proposed from alternative approaches), which have also repeatedly demonstrated their effectiveness, both in general and specifically in the different fields of application.
t is the first time a broad and systematized set of intervention techniques is presented, explaining the action form in detail. This way of approaching the learning of the professional work of clinical psychologists from a scientific perspective is likewise revolutionary compared to that developed by alternative approaches, in which this learning is close to initiation or novitiate rites. Thirty years later, the result can be summarized by pointing out that any psychologist, regardless of their theoretical orientation or affiliation school, currently has at least one manual of modification techniques or Behavior Therapy. Moreover, he occasionally (or habitually) uses these techniques, although, as has been indicated,
Analysis Of Intervention Techniques
This spectacular success of the techniques has also brought with it some problems. Among them, it is worth highlighting the use of these techniques from a technological and non-scientific perspective. It is considered that the fundamental thing to approach and solve a problem is to apply a method, and the objective has often been established to establish the appropriate technique for each situation. Something is necessary if these techniques are approached outside the theoretical context of reference.
This form of action is entirely contrary to the work of Behavior Therapy, whose fundamental starting point for carrying out intervention is an evaluation that allows identifying not only the problem behaviors and resources of the person but also the specific determinants of these behaviors. From here, as has already been stated, it will be necessary to design an intervention procedure specific to that particular case.
However, even considering this and other problems, developing intervention techniques in therapy and behavior modification has undoubtedly meant a significant step forward. Thirty years later, the techniques initially developed are still in use, and the number of available methods has increased significantly.
The first techniques (operant techniques, systematic desensitization, aversive techniques, etc.) were developed from learning theory. But, subsequently, as other problems and areas of intervention have been addressed and where learning theory was not capable of explaining or providing solutions to them, new techniques have been needed and developed outside of this theory. This is how biofeedback techniques, self-control techniques, rational psychotherapies, problem-solving therapies, etc., have appeared.
Some new techniques have been generated within Behavior Therapy itself, but others have been developed collateral, which has subsequently been added. Of these techniques, some present a solid justification and theoretical foundation; in others, this academic support is scarcer, frequently missing a transparent theoretical model of reference that allows explaining why these techniques work, offering explanations a posteriori instead. on the mechanisms involved in their effectiveness, often highly questionable.
But whatever how the techniques were generated, all of them must meet the requirement of experimentally demonstrating their performance’s effectiveness. This methodological requirement seems the only relevant for including a method among the so-called behavior modification techniques: experimentally showing its effect on people’s behavior.